Every year, more and more unique sets enter Magic’s ecosystem. Each premier set brings with it new mechanics and designs for players to incorporate into their arsenal. Even when revisiting a beloved plane, there’s always room for new creature types to arise as well as updates to old types.
Wizards of the Coast are usually not shy when it comes to bringing about changes to creature types to better represent their design. For instance, back in 2021, the Phyrexian creature type was announced. Beyond just adding Phyrexians to the game, Wizards updated roughly 250 existing cards, with most of them gaining the Phyrexian creature type.
Despite Wizards’ willingness to make alterations as needed, it seems any massive update is off the table. In a recent Blogatog response, MTG head designer Mark Rosewater made it clear that a grand creature update in the future is unlikely.
Grand Creature Type Updates
For those unfamiliar, the original “grand creature update” was an Oracle update that accompanied the release of Lorwyn in 2007. The main goal behind this decision was to bring older creatures up to date with the modern race-class model.
Ultimately, 1,197 cards in total were affected. Perhaps the most important change was that a bunch of creatures were given the Human subtype. Beyond that, other creatures were assigned races like Dryad or Merfolk.
There have been plenty of creature updates and errata in the years since then, but nothing of the same magnitude. With our return to Lorwyn looming, one player asked Mark Rosewater if another grand creature update would be happening any time soon.
Mark Rosewater not only signaled that no grand creature updates were on the horizon, but he also mentioned that R&D was not pleased with the last one. The reasoning was that too many cards no longer functioned as printed.
This definitely makes sense, as these changes can have a major impact on gameplay. Take the Phyrexian errata, for example. Infect was still a reasonable option in Modern back in 2021. Now that Infect staples like Glistener Elf and Blighted Agent were all Phyrexians, Plague Engineer became the ultimate hate card.
As benbingaling mentions in the comments of the Blogatog post, changes like these can be rather detrimental. Even if they allow more synergy, major errata can make it difficult for newer players to know which cards are correct as printed and which aren’t. After all, there’s no way for a newer player to know their Glistener Elf from New Phyrexia is anything more than an “Elf Warrior” without looking it up.
At the same time, there are benefits to these creature changes. As trumanthegraymerchant states, having a card whose name features a given creature type but doesn’t actually belong to that race or class is confusing in its own right. A perfect example of this is the fact that Dogged Detective isn’t actually a detective. So, while there may be no grand creature updates anytime soon, small windows for errata have their importance.
Creatures in Need of an Update
While another major creature type update may be off the table, Wizards hasn’t completely dismissed the possibility of making smaller changes. This is very good news as there are still a lot of cards that could do with being given new creature types. This has arguably become all the more important in recent years following Wizards’ expansion into more unique and dedicated creature types.
Speaking of more unique and dedicated creature types, that’s exactly what we’re seeing in Aetherdrift. For this set, Wizards is officially naming Shark people “Chordatans” which will presumably appear as an official creature type. If, or rather when, this happens, it would only make sense to errata Magic’s old Shark people so they have this relevant creature type too.
Thankfully, this would be an incredibly small-scale errata in the grand scheme of MTG. So far, only two existing cards appear to be Chordatans rather than just regular ocean-going Sharks. These cards are Loan Shark from Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Bigfin Bouncer from MTG Foundations.
Unlike a potentially massive creature type update, fixing two fairly recent old cards is hardly the end of the world. In fact, it’s arguably better to errata these cards sooner rather than later, so the old creature types don’t stick. While this might be beneficial in the long run, it makes sense that Wizards doesn’t always want to go about immediately changing things.
Even if Wizards is taking their time to sensibly consider their options, there are still plenty of cards needing obvious updates. Dogged Detective, for instance, is an obvious example that’s more confusing without the relevant Detective creature type. Similarly, both Noble Banneret and Noble Hierarch could and likely should be updated to have the Noble creature type.
Moving Forward
It’ll be interesting to see how often we see creature type errata moving forward. R&D may not like major updates, but Mark Rosewater has expressed the importance of consistency when it comes to Magic design. For example, Mark Rosewater has noted that old and new Werewolves not being in sync mechanically is a problem.
With this in mind, the most likely path forward is just seeing smaller errata spread out over time. Interestingly, this causes similar consequences, just at a slower rate. If anything, while more careful, this approach may cause more problems, since it encourages questions about why certain cards aren’t being errata-ed.
Overall, Mark Rosewater’s stance on another grand creature type update isn’t too surprising. Nonetheless, it showcases the importance he and R&D place on having as much overlap between a card’s Oracle text and the card’s printed creature type as possible. While errata can be a force for good, it’s always important to keep this in mind, especially with Universes Beyond bringing in so many new players.